Introduction: Small and Relatively Cheap FPV Quadcopter

Flying quad-copters is a lot of fun and it is one of those things that are easy to learn, but difficult to master. There is a lot of additional information around the interwebs, but if you happen to have any questions, I'll be more than willing to answer them.

Micro-quads are awesome for indoor flying on those days that rain keeps you in the house.

This project requires around 1h from start to finish, depending on your soldering skills. You could spend infinite amount of time playing with various configurations after the quad is built.

The whole build revolves around the flight controller (FC) which is Micro Scisky 32bit controller for brushed(!) motors. The main selling point is that is Naze32 compatible and that it has a DMS2 receiver already on board, which is awesome!. There are many small 3D printed frames but I decided on punkkills' Micro 105 FPV frame because I found it the prettiest :D. The frame is also very light which is very important since the small quad-copters cant pull much weight and still be fun while flying... The AUW (all up weight: everything mounted, including the battery, FPV gear and the kitchen sink) for this build is 68,5g, and the frame weights around 9g the way I've built it (two top plates: one for the vTX (video transmitter) and the other on the bottom for the camera and battery.

The motors are the cheapest i could find, as they are the main consumable on such small builds, especially if you're still learning how to fly (like me :D).

One thing to notice, as I'm sure many of you will, most of the items here are from Banggood. The reason is, they we the cheapest source for those items at the time I was buying all this. Also, freeshipping...

One bit of warning though: although not a subject of this instructable, you WILL have to have a working DSM2 compatible RC transmitter to fly the quad-copter, and if you fancy some FPV action a working video receiver with a screen or googles

This transmitter works almost out of the box with Micro Scisky, you only need to setup the channels and fly.

Step 3: Assembly...

Firstly, well solder the wire for the battery to the flight controller; red wire to VIN, black wire to GND. I recommend soldering the wires from the bottom, as you'll have clear access to USB port and you'll see the blinky lights (very important :D).

In the picture there are red dots for positive and black for negative leads. Never let red and black touch (white smoke).

Warning: If you buy nano-tec batteries, be sure that the red wire from the battery matches red wire from FC, otherwise you'll let the white smoke out. The battery pads are easy to swap, but you'll also have to make sure you don't short out the leads while swapping, or you'll destroy the battery or worse, it can catch fire...

After that we'll solder the motors in the following order:

To the front left and rear right you will solder clockwise rotating motors (red and blue wire): red wire to positive, blue to negative pad.

To the front right and rear left you will solder counter-clockwise rotating motors (white and black wire): white wire to positive, black to negative pad.

I recommend shortening the exposed leads of the motors to 1 mm max, so you don't accidentally short out the motor output. They will usually come with 2 mm exposed.

put the frame together, and that's it... configure and go fly :)

... unless ...

... you want FPV...

One of the advantages of this FC is that it has a filtered and regulated 5V output. The green circled connector is the connector we'll use to power the camera and vTX. The connector I used to connect it is salvaged from an old notebook from a fan. I frankly don't know what is the name of the connector. That's why I also included a separate lead to power directly from another battery. If you plan on powering from the same battery, you will have to do so buy attaching a pololu step up regulator between vTX and the battery. If you connect the vTX straight to the battery that powers FC, you'll get static, since brushed motors emit a lot of noise.

The dip switch is used to change the frequency you transmit on. Just solder it like its on the picture. It's very easy. three pins on the CS1, CS2 and CS3, and the other three pins, directly to the metal plate.

I shortened the antenna, removed isolation on the shield around 5 mm, split it into two, and around center 1mm. I soldered the middle to Ant pad, and two grounds to adjacent ground pads. The reason for using two ground pads is that it gives some sturdiness to the antenna in the event of crash.

From the camera, yellow wire is video feed, and it goes to "VIN" (unlike the FC, where it means Voltage IN, here it means Video In). the white wire is audio, which you can connect to A6.5 pad, or you can remove it altogether. the red and black wires are, as always, positive and negative leads. i twisted in both power leads for the vTX and power leads for the camera, because it was easier to solder. all red in a bunch, then solder to +5V pad, all blacks in a bunch and solder to any GND pad. Please reference the picture in BOM, as here I already have Velcro already glued to the vTX.

WARNING 2: DO NOT connect both the battery to FPV and the connector to the FC.

PS. don't mind the "broken" frame. I had to improvise and cut out the part of the frame, since I wanted as lowest profile possible, and I didn't want to use double sticky tape, or any other permanent solution. In the future I plan on designing my own frame around this particular FC, and when that happens, this instructable will be updated.

There are many variants of firmwares for your FC but flashing those is not in the scope of this document. If, in any case you would like betaflight firmware, check out this video. https://youtu.be/TljzFBZR4zE?t=796

PID Tuning -> use LuxFloat PID controller, set the values as I have them or you can experiment by yourself, you can lower the rates if you find them too twitchy :) (always have roll and pitch rate at the same value, it will be easier on you )

Receiver -> If you've bound it to the receiver, you can see what values your receiver reports here

Modes -> This is where you set up the way you want to fly (angle, horizon or acro/air mode) and also, the switch to arm the quad

CLI -> set motor_pwm_rate=32000 ; save

Step 5: Flight...

No one can help you there :) its between you, your sticks and your quad-copter. There are simulators like FPV Freerider and Liftoff, to name a few, that can help you out, but nothing beats the real thing.

Fly, crash, repair, repeat.

Step 6: Conclusion...

The joy of building something on your own, is only comparable with the joy of seeing that same something work as intended, or even better :) Hopefully you learned something new and interesting here, and you might even considering building this sweet micro-quad.

Honorable mentions...

There are many resources on the interwebs explaining how to build a quadcopter and/or configure naze32 compatible flight controllers, but these sites and videos have helped me personally to make this as enjoyable as possible.

Shout out to all the youtubers whose videos helped me in my search for knowledge pertinent to quadcopters:

RC Model Reviews, Painless360, Joshua Bardwell, AndyRC and many many more....-----------------------------------------------PS. If you liked my instructable, please consider voting for it in these contests: Make It Fly Contest 2016 First Time Author Contest 2016

Step 7: UPDATE: New Frame

As you might recall, I promised I'd be making a better frame for my little quad.

Since my original frame met with an accident (ceiling-floor variety), I was forced to make good on my promise and start learning one of many 3d softwares available. If you go down this path, I strongly urge you to persist, as the learning curve can be quite steep, but the rewards are plenty.

I am quite proficient in SketchUp, but I had a feeling it would not be sufficient for what I had in mind.

If you have a newer computer, I can recommend Autodesk's Fusion 360 as it is free for students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and startups. All you need is to create an account.

Unfortunately, my 3D printer is crap, and I can only run test prints on it that turn out ugly, after which, if test proves successful I send it to my friend, who has a few nice 3D printers. I have even flown some of my test prints, to various results, as you can see on picture 3.

This frame is designed with this specific configuration in mind, and all the measurements are made accordingly. It doesn't mean it wont work with some other parts, but this is what I have, and what I was able to measure.

When I'm satisfied with the frame's characteristics, I'll be posting the files online for your perusal.

Comments

The receiver is already integrated on the boards, and its on uart 2 you don't have to connect another receiver, but if you want to use another kind, there are boards that already have other kind of receivers integrated.

The mass is an issue, you don't want your receiver to be heavier than your whole quad :D

And if it is impossibleHow to connect the TX700 Pro and the Quanum V52 Ground Control System, please?https://hobbyking.com/en_us/winbox-ground-control-system-v52.html https://hobbyking.com/en_us/rx700lr-psu-reseller.htmlhttps://hobbyking.com/en_us/tx700-pro-reseller.html

Go for it :) If you need help, just ask :)BTW, since I've posted this instructable, a whole new generation of flight controllers has been developed which are F3 chip basedfor Example this All-in-One solution: http://bit.ly/2faItCgor just an FC with receiver integrated: http://bit.ly/2faI03f check it, and don't forget to ask if you have any questions...

after searching forever I finally found my guide to my 1ST quadcopter or any flying device for that matter. thank you for this and I may have questions in a few weeks when I get everything. Also I may have missed it but what's the cheapest Control for the FPV option one with a screen or would it be cheaper to get a non screen controller and a receiver for say my computer? I am a total noob and I want this to be as Price friendly as possible for my first time.

I'm not sure what the question is, but I think this will give you the answer: FPV setup consist from the transmitting part and the receiving part. Transmitting part consists of camera and video transmitter, and receiving part consist from video receiver and some sort of screen or image reproduction device that has analog video in RCA connector. It is usually yellow colored

if you have ANY of those analog image reproduction device, you don't have to purchase another. smaller screen is much more portable, if you want to go outside, but if you're flying indoors, a living room TV can also serve the purpose.

Yes, they should, apparently they have 40 channels receiver integrated, though they do have somewhat low resolution. Check out some of the reviews on the internet, its always a good thing to do before spending your hard earned cash :)

Yes, but only if you're using Boscam compatible receiver. The VTX doesn't come on E band (Boscam) and to switch it to E band you have to de-solder the lid, and connect two pads like in this picture at position 1

I couldn't bridge the pins with solder, it just didn't want to adhere, but I managed to do it by soldering a long wire across the pins, and then trimming the extra wire.... took me an hour, a magnifying glass and helluva good lighting, but i made it work

I took a single wire strand from some leftover wires I had, and bend it in U shape, with the flat bottom the width of the gap (cca 1mm). Then I presoldered that U shape and the pins. I put the wire to the correct position where its supposed to be soldered and briefly pressed the soldering iron on it. when it took, I used my wire cutters and cut of the excess wire.

The TS5832 should work with RC832 as it is on Boscam's band, but from what I've read, the FX758-2 has less noise.